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For your consideration, my respose to the column:

"I resist the idea of creating male nymphs or female satyrs."
Really? Because your description of Satyrs is entirely sex-neutral, avoiding the question at all, and is therefore PERFECT because it lets us project our own additional assumption onto the creature.

Please realize that this question about whether to include male dryads or female satyrs is NOT about your specifically stating that they exist. You do not have to say that they exist to satisfy the camp that sees many of these single-sex creatures as problematic. Rather it is about not precluding their existence when doing so is unnecessary. All that you have to do is keep the description open to interpretation, just as you've done here with the Satyr, just as D&D has done with many of these creatures in the past.

If you want examples, check out the Dryad's 4E MM description or the Harpy's 3.5 MM description. The strength of these descriptions is that, if you believe these creatures should be exclusively female, their descriptions will let you go right on thinking that because they make no mention of males of these species. At the same time, if you believe that these creature should represent both sexes (or, in the case of the Dryad, a hermaphroditic creature, which makes the most since because it's an oak tree spirit), their descriptions will let you go right on thinking that too because they make no mention of any sex exclusivity.

This brings up the flaw in asking which D&D version of a creature is the most iconic, because often time, multiple people can look at the exact same description of a monster and walk away with different interpretations of it, and that is a GOOD thing. I guarantee somebody walked away from your description of the Satyr thinking they were exclusively male (apparently even you yourself?) while I walked away from it thinking how great it was that the door was open again for female ones. This Satyr is the perfect example of a win-win.

Part of me wants some of the monster description room mention settings in order to broaden the view of these types of creatures. Just mention that "in some settings, X is Y" and be done with it. My minotaurs aren't cursed (the large savage minotaurs come from the noble medium ones) and my harpies are both sexes (though males are rarely seen). Monster lore sound be accessible to new DMs and DM who don't want/need to change from convention while still encouraging others to customize their worlds.

Personally, I was disappointed with the description for Centaurs. Even in Greek legend, Centaurs were not predominantly Chaotic Good and nature-y (although Chiron, the classic "heroic mentor" was, he was an exception rather than a rule). Instead, Hercules fought wild, brutal tribes of wild Centaurs every bit as bacchanal as Saytrs and even more dangerous. I'd like to see these types of Centuars acknowledged within the rules - and what's more scary than a thousand pounds of berserking doom charging at you?

The others in the article were fine - not great, but the Harpies sounded fairly interesting.